High-brightness Cs focused ion beam from a cold-atomic-beam ion source

We present measurements of focal spot size and brightness in a focused ion beam system utilizing a laser-cooled atomic beam source of Cs ions. Spot sizes as small as (2.1 ± 0.2) nm (one standard deviation) and reduced brightness values as high as (2.4 ± 0.1) × 10⁷ A m^-2 Sr^-1 eV^-1 are observed with a 10 keV beam. This measured brightness is over 24 times higher than the highest brightness observed in a Ga liquid metal ion source. The behavior of brightness as a function of beam current and the dependence of effective source temperature on ionization energy are examined. The performance is seen to be consistent with earlier predictions. Demonstration of this source with very high brightness, producing a heavy ionic species such as Cs⁺, promises to allow significant improvements in resolution and throughput for such applications as next-generation circuit edit and nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry.